No problem. What category was the Xtra located under in Device Manager? Since you tried installing the PlaysForSure firmware, the Xtra may be showing up under the Portable Devices category. If so, you do not need any drivers or software installed to get the Xtra working or detected. In fact, the installed drivers and Creative software you have installed may be the cause. If the above is true (showing in the Portable Device category in Device Manager), then you may want to uninstall all Creative software and the added drivers you have installed to see if the Xtra then gets recognized by the firmware installer.

__________________.~Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear to be bright until they speak~

Got the zen xtra working, I read through most of the forums here and I tried a few different computers, I had recently fixed a computer for a friend and it had only XP pro sp1 and hardwear drivers installed, connected xtra player then ran the p4sure firmware and the reload OS on the Xtra, it connected first time and installed firmware correctly on the Xtra.
now the p4sure 2.10.03 firmware is installed and xtra is running a treat and also works in vista.

Advice to others - try using different computers, I had used 4 different machines and got one that worked.

Good job Alan! Thanks for posting a follow-up after getting it working. XP and MTP are extremely picky together and can be easily broken. Sometimes, it just is faster finding another computer to us instead. Again, congrats and thank you for the compliments!

__________________.~Light travels faster than sound, which is why some people appear to be bright until they speak~

Wish I knew. I hooked it up, installed the software. All is good as for now.
Reboot.
Creative auto update decides that there is new software available for the Zen.
Download and install.
Reboot.
Zen is dead.
Won't turn on, won't charge, and hooking it into a computer, and I've tried 3 of them with different OS's, has no effect. Still won't turn on.

I have no idea what happened. Has anyone encountered a problem like this before or is there a combination of buttons that need to be pressed and held down that will launch it into recovery mode?

Any help would be appreciated.

--EDIT--
Well duh....

When all else fails, try hitting the reset button. Need a pin to do it but it seems to be working as for now....

I was having flashbacks when it happened, and I don't recall doing anything to it to make it brick. It was hooked up, the Creative software decides to go and check for new versions of software so my ZEN will be more efficient at doing tasks. I do understand that sometimes fixes are necessary to help eliminate crashes, add features, and speed up the process when it comes to converting video, or music to your player. Gang, this is not just a MP3 player issue when it comes to updates, it is pretty much anything that hooks into a computer. Motherboard, video card, NIC, sound card. You name it, it usually gets an update of some kind. This update can be a software fix or a firmware flash. The firmware is usually what hoses most users.

Now, last time I checked the # 1.21 was greater than 1.03 unless my math is way off, or I mis-read the read me on the update. The ZEN was hooked up when the update was downloading, once the software got done running, I had a nice new shiny brick. So I freaked. There was less than 4 hours of run time on this player when this happened. I didn't use it a whole lot as my jukebox holds more, 100gig or so. See my first post on this little gem as to how I fixed it.

I'm thinking of replacing the HD in the jukebox with a smaller one as I don't have 100gig of music in my entire collection, and I have a laptop that could really use the extra space. So my adventure may be starting all over again.....

Rebulid my old pc (msi k8n neo platinum + 3000+ mobil A64 + 2*512 kingmax hc) and install new windows xp pro sp2,media player 10,creative driver,creative softwares and try to upgrade the firmware.disable the detection in creative organizer.
Do not work again maybe the hungarian version of windows XP the problem?